Online ramblings and other work displacement activities by writer David Bishop

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Farewell, John Hicklenton

This is a re-post from the official 2000AD website forum, where comics fans and professionals are paying tribute to artist John Hicklenton [see the whole thread here], who died from complications due to MS. You'll have to excuse the swearing, but John wouldn't have expected anything less. He was to British comics what Francis Bacon was to British painting...

Fucking sad news. I was lucky enough to know John, and commissioned him to draw for the Meg during the first half of the 90s when he couldn't get arrested on 2000AD. [He had the misfortune to illustrate a Heavy Metal Dredd script I wrote, but work's work.]

I still marvel at the bonkers shit he came up with on the Pandora series, and how he cheerfully informed me most of it was drawn while on copious amounts of drugs - acid or LSD, can't remember which. John was an utterly unique talent.

I also remember the umbrage he took at Megazine letters page diatribes. He replied with a thoughtful, intelligent rebuttal of the more arse-brained correspondence [hmm, arse-brained correspondents - sounds like something John would draw!].

John was a committed believer in causes and fighting the good fight, which it sounds like he did right to the end with MS.

John Hicklenton, rest in peace? Fuck that shit. He's probably setting fire to whereever he is now. Once the blaze goes out, he'll use the charred embers to start drawing again. Good on you, John.

If you've never heard of John, check out the tributes to him flowing on Twitter from Simon Pegg, Neil Gaiman and many more.